What have I been doing?

I'm sure there are scores of rabid fans wanting the answer to that question...well, here we are! Sorry to take a four month hiatus. Oops.

In June I purchased a $100 30 day introductory package from Pure Barre. I've taken (and loved) barre classes before; my first experience was a few months of Go Figure in the summer of 2013. This style of workout is intense, hard and gives results. It's also pretty stupid expensive. I ended up stopping Go Figure classes because my membership at the Village Clubs offered barre classes and I decided I didn't need to pay extra, but those group ex classes were definitely more "dance-y/ballet-y" than stereotypical "barre-y." Picture me reacting to order of "Plie! Tendu! Battement!" and then pick yourself off the floor from laughing.

Anyway, Pure Barre is freaking hard. I can't really decide which technique I like better between the two. PB just works better for my schedule because they have early (5:45 a.m.) classes and are a little closer to where I live. I haven't purchased another package because they are freaking expensive, but I DID sign up for a free class this past Saturday in celebration of their 5 years in AZ. I entered a raffle to win 6 months of classes for free because, why not?! I'm sure I didn't win, but you can't really pass the chance up.

I've also incorporated at least one hot yoga classes into each week. If I said barre classes are tough, hot yoga classes are like going into battle. But the drenched feeling of getting completely detoxed after each session is enough to keep me reeled in. I've been attending Lauren's Village Hot Yoga 5:30 a.m. classes (waking up at 4:45 a.m is rough, just in case you weren't sure.) on Wednesdays. I love her. VHY is a set list of poses throughout each session, which I hear is like Bikram, but without a creepy guy in a man-diapy leading the class, apparently. I also like to see how many towels I can accumulate throughout each class. My record is two full-length body towels and 5 hand towels. A fun game!

I can't believe last year at this time I was training for my second half marathon. Was I huffing glue or what?

(She is my #1 Intervention fave.)

It is DISGUSTING lately. It's hot and muggy. I was running about 7 miles at this time last year. No thank you.

What else? Not much. I may attempt to keep up with this. Oh! Just a little aside/FYI/oopsie-daisy: I eat meat again now. I've been having some stomach issues for about the past year and a half now and started reading up on the Low FODMAPS diet.

Yes, all the things on that list are the ones to be avoided/used sparingly on Low FODMAPS. Kill me now, right? Luckily, I got tested for Celiac and don't have any gluten sensitivity. There are other foods on that list I know don't effect me, but I ended up cutting out ones who have straight up wrecked havoc on my insides. (See: Apples. *insert crying emoji with angry fist to god*) In taking out a lot of my protein sources (beans/lentils), I really didn't see much of a choice. And I have noticed an improvement, for sure. Right now I'm sticking with just chicken/turkey a few times a week. Still dicey on red meat (if AV offers me a bite of something he says I simply CANNOT miss out on, like the tri-tip sandwich from Twisted Grove, then I will try it), and still a no on pork. 

That's all for now. I leave you with a line of poetry after seeing Straight Outta Compton this weekend. Incorporate it into your daily life: When you diss Dre you diss yourself.

Done!

First, I want everyone to know that I drafted a post on Friday and had absolutely no time to edit it and post it (I had to work through lunch) that contained the above graphic. I absolutely couldn't let it go to waste, so there you go.

Well! Saturday morning came and went in a blaze (and I do mean a gigantic, hot, fiery sun-ball blaze) and I lived to tell about it...barely.

First things first, I did not meet my 2:20 goal. There. I knew I wasn't going to at the 5K mark. Why? Not because I wasn't prepared or didn't train enough or didn't fuel enough or didn't get enough rest. If I hadn't done any of those things, I might be disappointed. No friends, it is because the Y Race was multiple gigantic uphill loops in the side of a mountain that took off at 7:00 a.m. when it had already reached 70 degrees with zero wind. So, I guess you could say I was disappointed for a little while. But when I factored in the things that were simply out of my control...I guess I'm pretty proud to have finished that beast.

Friday night we continued the carb-load (PESTO PENNE BAKED IN A BREAD BOWL!) and went to sleep early. I woke up feeling pretty dang good. I dropped a Nuun in a water bottle and drank it throughout getting ready and eating breakfast. We got to South Mountain (emphasis on MOUNTAIN) Park in enough time to go to the bathroom and stretch before the 7:00 gun.

I have to say, the first half of the race felt pretty good. I had enough gas in the tank to take on the hills and the temperature hadn't started to factor in yet. I took water at every stop to conserve my hand-held reserves--although I realized I had forgotten to drop a Nuun in it. Rookie mistake. Remember how I said I think 10K's are my new official running time? Well I felt awesome until the turnaround halfway through!

Then. THEN. I stared back up the hill I had just happily descended and knew it was going to be a long ride on the struggle-bus to finish. I took my first walking break at mile 7 and knew I was done for. It got hot. The hills seemed steeper and longer. I trained exclusively on the Scottsdale Greenbelt and running down Shea and in neighborhoods around there. There are "hills" along those routes, but nothing like these monstrosities. 

The sun started to factor in and I started pouring water on myself. I stopped to walk through water stations and had them refill my bottle as well. I knew 2:20 was out the window and beating my previous time of 2:28 was gone too. I just had. to. finish. it.

It sucked. I was dripping from a combination of water and sweat (have you ever blinded yourself by sweating into both your eyeballs? It's amazing.) and wanted to die. I wanted to take my phone out and send AV a crying text about not making it. But I didn't. I finally, FINALLY crossed the finished line at 13.15 miles in 2:34:27. And I was just happy to have survived that sucker.

I immediately chugged 3 cold water bottles and ate half a banana, part of a blueberry oat bar and part of an apple. We came home and AV made gourmet breakfast burritos while I showered before passing out for a few hours. I woke up and felt like a new person. And then I completely annihilated the eggplant parm at Il Capo.

Sunday night I started to feel a little defeated/upset about how everything shook out this weekend. The early mornings of running before the sun came up, pushing myself to more diligently follow my training plan than last year, money spent on new shoes, etc. all seemed "for nothing." But I talked it out with AV and if I HADN'T done those things, then maybe I could be upset. But I really did do everything I could and as someone who doesn't run very naturally, who picked easily one of the hardest races in the area to tackle, I'm OK with it. I'm actually pretty proud of it.

Sunday afternoon I forced myself to the 2:45 afternoon "power" class and it was painful/necessary/amazing. I had Monday off for comp time from working the weekend before and took a 75 minute flow class at the Gainey location that also helped stretch me out. I also rewarded myself by finally drinking the kool-aid yesterday and am really excited to continue my practice more in-depth for a while. But I don't hate the idea of running and I know I will always have that to fall back on as a workout. So I can officially say I'm OK with not hitting 2:20, because I gained more out of it than a finishing time.

...As an aside, AV ran the 5K in 28 minutes. WHAT!

Nunnya biznass

After I quit wallowing in my self pity on Monday, I actually had a pretty good week of workouts.

Monday afternoon AV ended up getting tickets to the Cardinal's game from a "secret source." Seeing as it was the first game of the season and a Monday Night Football game, parking at the stadium was a goat-rodeo nightmare. 

The game was fun and Arizona eked out a last-minute win so at least we had that to comfort us while waiting an HOUR to get out of the parking lot. Woof!

Because of AZ's massive storm dump this week, there was no way I could run my scheduled 5 miles outside in Tuesday morning's swamp-like conditions. I busted out 5 treadmill miles in 50:30 (10:06/mi pace) and was bored outta my gourd, but at least I felt pretty good.

Wednesday's treadmill 5K came in at 31:20 (another 10:06/mi pace...would be nice if that could ever translate into real life. It shall not.) and I followed it with upper body weights. 

Yesterday's yoga was amazing, per usual. We did a lot of twisting and opening around the spine. We also set my quads on fire while holding Chair for approximately 53 hours while hooking our elbows to each side. 

This morning I tried some Tri-Berry Nuun in my water bottle for my first-of-the-week outside run. I wanted to try these out to see if the electrolytes have any effect on me. I'm going to use it in my water for tomorrow's 9 miles (gulp), but thought I'd test drive them today. Not sure if it was placebo effect or if these babies really work (I'm leaning towards the latter, since I've read a lot about them), but I felt great on this run. 3.22 with splits of 10:41, 10:04 and 9:44 for 3.22 in 32:16 (10:01/mi). It felt great! I'm looking forward to see how they effect me tomorrow. I finished up with a 10 minute ab video from Blogilates. It was one of her older clips, so she wasn't as "peppy" (read: annoying).

I tried to capture my before/after shots to sufficiently show a typical sweat-drench.

(Didn't mean to have the flash in that first pic. Nice faces, dork.)

Tomorrow's forecast has a 63% humidity rate at 5:00 a.m., only getting worse from there. I'm just going to force myself to be positive and do my best. And that's what matters.